© U.S. Bureau of Land Management
U.S. Bureau of Land Management team members Tom Noble (center) and Neffra Matthews (right) partner with the Government of Tanzania in a recent re-excavation of the famous early hominid footprints discovered by the Leakeys at Laetoli in Tanzania.
U.S. Bureau of Land Management team members Tom Noble (center) and Neffra Matthews (right) partner with the Government of Tanzania in a recent re-excavation of the famous early hominid footprints discovered by the Leakeys at Laetoli in Tanzania.
In a new examination of Laetoli in northern Tanzania, where a 3.6-million-year-old track of footprints of the bipedal human ancestor Australopithecus is preserved, researchers now argue that the classic understanding of this site is mistaken. The footprints have been buried since the mid-1990s for preservation, but a section recently opened for study as Tanzanian officials make plans for a museum on the site.
Preserved at Laetoli are two lines of hominid prints, along the crisscrossing tracks of early rabbits and other animals. The site is the earliest example of an upright, humanlike gait in our ancestors. Early analysis had suggested the tracks were laid down by three individuals, evolutionary relatives of the famous Australopithecus aferensis "Lucy," discovered in Ethiopia. One Australopithecus walked next to another, while a third, smaller individual trailed behind, stepping in the tracks of one of the larger individuals.
